Q-CORDIS
by disillusionist9
Summary: A mysterious feeling drags your twin Frisk towards Mt Ebott, with you not far behind. You find yourself trapped beneath the mountain and are faced with a race of people long-forgotten by humanity: Monsters. It doesn't take long for you to decide to free them, but Frisk is keeping secrets and everything is working against you. Will you make it out with your life?
1. Once Upon a Time

A mysterious feeling drags your twin Frisk towards Mount Ebott, with you not far behind.

You find yourself trapped beneath the mountain, and are faced with a race of people long-forgotten by Humanity. Monsters. But, despite the name of their race, they aren't monstrous like you'd think they'd be with a name like that. You soon feel a need to free all those who are trapped, regardless of the trials they have given you. On top of all of this, your twin sibling Frisk seems to be troubled and holding secrets from you. Will you find a way to free those trapped Underground? Will you be able to free Frisk, and Yourself? Will you ever have the happiness of a family that you, and your sibling Frisk lost so long ago?

Read, and find out where in this story you will go.

 _Check end notes for specific warnings regarding each chapter._

 _Set 10 years into the future of original canon, this story follows two teenagers who fall into the Underground, befriending monsters along the way. Tags will be added as characters and plot points are introduced to reduce spoilers and baiting as much as possible. Rating reflects future events and references to sensitive subjects and is also subject to change. Story also posted on AO3._

* * *

 **Once Upon a Time**

"Frisk! Frisk where are you?"

Your voice echoes against the thick tree trunks surrounding you. Straining, you listen for the rustling of leaves or fall of footsteps that might give you a clue to their location, but all you hear is the chittering of insects and calls of nocturnal creatures.

"Frisk!" you call out. Creatures fall silent at the noise and the wind mocks you as it whistles through the treetops.

Your lungs are on fire. The burning dryness in your throat makes you wish you'd brought a water bottle from camp but those were locked away in the van so nothing could get to them in the night. You knew this trip was a terrible idea from the get-go, bringing a gaggle of teenagers who'd never left the city up into the foothills for "some fresh air and exercise", some kind of bonding experience to placate your foster parents and the agency. As you alternate walking and jogging through trees without a defined path your leg muscles cramp and protest to more hiking after a full day of it. Spring in the mountains could be deceptively warm during the day but at night the temperatures dropped past the point of safety. That winter had been wet and brutal after a long drought in the state, and piles of snow lingered here in the forest, impeding your search. Stones, roots, animal dens, and downed branches underfoot slow your progress. Breaks in the canopy show the winking brilliance of millions of stars framed in an inky sky. You can't tell if they're laughing at you or urging you forward

Fear rises hot and nauseating in your gut the longer it takes to find them. Even in full noon sunlight, Frisk can barely see a few feet in front of them, and their hearing is even worse. Did they bring their hearing aids? What about their glasses? They have a stubborn habit of purposefully losing both to the endless exasperation of your long string of caregivers. Since your parent's passing you had watched out for Frisk which means you usually take the brunt of punishment in their stead. They hate when others treat them like glass because of their sight and hearing impairments but were particularly bothered when you did. It didn't stop you from protecting them. Frisk is the only person you had left of your family, you would do anything for them.

Including getting hopelessly lost in the forest at night where there were probably at least a dozen bears ready to eat you.

A migraine that bloomed the moment the camping caravan was in sight of Mt. Ebott and since sunk it's claws firmly into your brain threatens to halt you, and you lean into the nearest trunk to bend over and dry heave. The smooth texture of the bark makes you lose your grip. You fall to your hands and knees into the sludgy mix of half-frozen mud and decayed leaves at the base. Gasping for breath against the surprise and pain, you count backwards from twenty to regain your focus. Tiny branches caught in your hair prick your scalp and burrs work their way deeper into your clothes along your arms, legs, and stomach. Somehow your hair is still in the ponytail you went to bed in. With the sharpness of pain in your head it feels like you can make out the individual thorns digging into your skin. Eyes squeezed shut to fight a rise of nausea, you can hear the rhythmic thudding of footsteps up ahead, the crunching of snow further up the mountain.

Instead of shouting like before, something the pounding of your migraine refused that you do, you push yourself to your feet, dark splotches on your jeans and sleeves where the cold muck underfoot seeped into them. The dirty sneakers on your feet couldn't get a grip at first but soon you were pushing through the underbrush and trees, following the sound of Frisk plodding through the dense forest.

The pain in your head forces you to slow again. You heave and your meager dinner rushes back up and out. You are glad for the shadowed darkness so you can't see what you'd just left on the forest floor. Panting for breath you force yourself to press on. Why hadn't you grabbed a flare gun? A coat? Or a flashlight? You'd barely made time to change from sleep pants to jeans. You had your phone in your pocket but up here you didn't get service and by now it was probably dead, anyway.

"Frisk, wait!"

Without warning, you surge through a tight gap between two fir trees and almost fall over again when there wasn't another line of trees to stop your momentum. A small clearing with dew-soaked grass and thick underbrush opens before you. Several yards away, Frisk stands with their back to you and their face skyward.

Wind rips through the clearing more violently than it could in the protection of the trunks and branches you'd fought through. Their hair whips around their head and the hem of the shirt they wore to bed billows everywhere, exposing their back and stomach to the cold night air. Frisk's arms are out at their sides like a tightrope walker as they slowly move through the tall grass and bushes. A backpack rests high on their shoulders and you pray there's something inside to help you get back to the others or even heavier sweaters than what you both had now in case you needed to weather out the night in the wilderness. You try to call their name again but it's all too much, your voice a whisper. Impossibly, over the rush of wind and their own diminished hearing, Frisk turns towards you at the attempt to call out.

Eyes wide and face slack, they stare in your direction unblinking and unmoving. You're reminded of the herd of deer your foster family witnessed grazing off the mountain path earlier that morning. With their ears pricked up and large black eyes wary, they'd watched your group for a breathless second. They darted away when one of the younger kids gasped in surprise, tumbling through the forest quicker than you could follow. Moving delicately from the fatigue in your limbs and the wariness of startling Frisk, you make your way through the overgrowth one step at a time, focused solely on reaching them then somehow finding your way back to camp.

"Can you hear me, Frisk?" you whisper. Despite their earlier reaction to the soft sound they stood unchanged. You continued speaking anyway in case they could make out the sound of your voice and move toward you. "We need to go back to camp. Look, it's freezing out here and...and you're shivering! Shit, do you have something in your backpack to put on?"

Your hand grabs the one they have outstretched closest to you. Expecting it to be easy to start pulling back the general direction you remembered coming from, when their hand twists and grabs your wrist you aren't ready.

"Okay, it's okay, Frisk, it's me! It's _." You're not sure if your whisper is powerful enough to go over the wind to reach them even at this proximity so you lift your other hand and move it close to their face to sign their name to try and get their attention.

The grip is starting to get painful but you're too relieved at finding them to notice. Slices of white hot pain are running through your head from the migraine as it is and smaller doses of pain are insignificant in comparison. There's no response from your attempt at ASL. As much as you hurt and as tired as you are, you know you need to find cover. The wind here is too strong to stay in the whole night and it would be safer to maybe find a tree to climb or at least some sort of shelter in the trees while you wait for dawn. You're prepared to stay up all night watch to protect Frisk.

Fingernails dig into the sensitive flesh of your wrist hard enough for you to cry out and close your eyes, tears pricking at the edges. There's no give when you try to wrench your arm out of their hold, their other hand flying down to grab the hand you'd used to sign in front of their face.

"Frisk! What the hell! What are you doing? Let go of me - what the fuck!"

As you struggle your shoes slip on a patch of ice beneath rotten leaves, dragging Frisk down with you when they refuse to let go, staring at you with unseeing eyes, pupils blown wide. The pain in your head makes you want to vomit again. It's never been this bad before. You try to regain your balance but without the use of your arms it's futile and makes the bottom drop out of your stomach as you fall backward...and keep _falling...falling-_

 **Stop.**

…

. . .

. . . . . . . .

". . . _Asriel._ . ."


	2. Fallen Down

It hurts.

Everything hurts.

 _Everything_ hurts and you feel cheated that death is this painful.

There's too much pain to think about what you regret but you are dimly aware that you have many. Seventeen is an awfully young age to die at the bottom of a cave in the Rocky Mountains.

Most of the agony centers in an ache deep in your chest, like a weight against your lungs, a ton of bricks holding you down by the ribs without mercy. Pushing down. Pulling you into the ground beneath you.

Were you facing up now? Had you been face down? You can't tell which way is up anymore.

The feeling of light against your eyelids has you sucking in a breath against the pressure in your ribs and you feel your body spasm with coughing, your senses dull and delayed, as if you're watching this horror happen to someone else.

Is this the beginning of the end, the gentle green sea above a raging deep?

Something soft touches your face. It feels like fingers brushing the hair away from your mouth, nose, and eyes. The difference between the sharpness inside of you and the gentleness of those hands sets your head spinning. You struggle to focus on what's happening on the outside of your body rather than the turmoil within. There's no concept of how much time passes but you feel sluggish, burdened, and the process of disassociating with the pain feels intensely physical.

Another spasm rockets through you and grounds you to the physical pain like a lifeline. Your brain catches up to the moment. You're willingly following the soft pull of something bright, white, warm, comforting and the embodiment of everything you'd assumed death would feel like. So if the pain is what you have to use to keep you here, so be it. You're not ready to die. Not here, not now, not like this it isn't FAIR.

Where's Frisk? You can't leave them! What if they're alive, too? The idea they could still be alive fills you with determination.

This is agony, it's torment, it's pain worse than anything you could have imagined, but you cling onto it before the rope of consciousness can slip through your fingers forever.

The white light starts pulling harder against your grip on reality and you do everything you can to sink into what you think is reality. Reality is the blood and broken pieces of yourself at the bottom of this cave to hell.

Panic.

You're able to hold on for a few moments longer until something snaps. Dimly, you're aware of your head throwing itself back and your mouth opening in a scream. You can't feel it.

You can't feel anything. You feel everything.

Darkness swallows you whole.

* * *

Someone calls your name. You don't think it's the first time.

In a snap, your eyes open wide and you suck in the deepest lungful of air you ever remember breathing, choking on it in your enthusiasm.

A flurry of hands appears in front of your face as you gasp like a fish on land. Belatedly your brain tells you those hands were on your shoulders before and shaking you. Frisk. Relief floods you and spills out at tears down your cheeks as you struggle to breathe through the coughing fit. You try to lift one of your arms to take their hands in yours, make sure they're real and that no, you aren't dead. Or you are and so are they? You have to know and the physical touch will help ground you.

"Frisk?"

God, that hurts. Your throat feels like hamburger.

They look like shit; there's no other word for it. You doubt you look much better. A crusty patch of what you assume to be blood coats part of their cheek. Some flakes away as their lips stretch in a smile. There's not a cut anywhere you can see to explain the blood. Holding your breath, afraid it's not real, you lift your hands and rest them against their cheeks. After a moment's hesitation you use one of your thumbs to rub away the blood, drowning in the wave of relief threatening to force tears from your eyes. Their face is close to yours, close enough for their hair to tickle your cheeks and nose, their eyes darting back and forth as they look for an undetermined something. Whatever they see satisfies them enough to back up a bit.

Words fly fast and almost unintelligible from their fingers which is hard for you to follow in your prone position. You catch _don't move_ and _right back_ out of the hand gymnastics they perform as they crouch over you. When they move away, your vision opens up to a great yawning cavern stretching above, an enormous hollow column climbing higher and higher until it breaks to a bright disc. Sunlight. You grit your teeth then try to swallow and release the tension. You'd _fallen_ from that. It had to be ten, no, twelve stories above your heads. Unhelpfully, your memory pulls up images you'd filed away while preparing for a PSAT, equations that make your stomach turn. Velocity, force, acceleration... _you should not be alive_.

You shove the numbers and images away from you, crawling out of your own head like a zombie from a grave and try to use the world around you to assure yourself that miraculously you were alive and so was Frisk so who were you to question that?

There's something springy supporting you. Your hands fall back to your sides, the monumental effort of moving them up to Frisk's face sending tremors along your arms, and run them over something as soft and tangible as heavy crushed velvet. It feels like hundreds of delicate petals and flower stems under your fingers. Taking stock of yourself, you can feel your tennis shoes still on your feet your legs are still covered by the jeans you'd grabbed off the top of your duffel bag. It's your favorite pair, and you almost giggle from the absurdity over worrying if they were ruined now or not. There are far more important things to consider.

Nothing feels broken and you lay there in disbelief. All the pain earlier...did you imagine it? It doesn't seem probable and you sort of remember landing heavily on your shoulders, and something snapping inside of you. Yet here you lay, able to move all your fingers and toes. Impossibly gold flowers and vibrant green leaves and stems surround you. Tendrils of vines and roots blur in the dark smudges of earth that make up the walls. Your muscles protest but you manage to move your head to the side to follow Frisk as they move out of your vision. Frisk dips a hand into the backpack you remember resting on their shoulders when you found them in the clearing.

The thought brings your eyes back up towards the deceptively small ring of light from above. At first glance you'd seen the bright white light of high noon, but you realized with the angle of the mountain and the inability to tell how much time had passed, you had no idea where it lay in the sky. Was there a search party looking for you? How long were you out? Did you have a concussion? Oh, god, you don't want to fall back asleep, not until someone finds you!

Your elbows dig into the flowerbed beneath you as you force yourself upright. Ugh. Vertigo. Lovely.

A choked sound to your left tells you Frisk noticed your movement. Your twin scoots over the flowers and you watch as the blossoms spring back to their original places as soon as they pass over, as if they'd never been disturbed at all.

The sharp smell of alcohol surprises you as Frisk rips open a small paper square. A glance into the backpack they'd dragged over with them shows you the first aid kid your foster parents brought along on this trip. An opened water bottle is pushed into your hand and you drink from it greedily. Your brain is foggy and slow on the uptake but there's one word you can muster.

"Why?"

Frisk doesn't look at you, just pushes up the sleeve of your sweater and keeps running the alcohol towelette over your arms to clean away dirt and look for bruises and cuts. Their blunt bangs, bright streaks of poorly dyed blue shot through them, hang over their eyes. You can't see any little plastic and wire bits over the shell of their ear. No hearing aids, then, or glasses either. But they hadn't had any trouble hearing you get up so they were bluffing, or stalling, and you couldn't make up your mind whether to be more angry or worried about that.

"Frisk, why do you have the first aid kit?"

A few more passes with a new towelette, this time up towards your neck, before you grab it from their hands and start cleaning yourself up instead.

This frees their hands to fidget in their lap. They pick at one of the rips in their flannel pajama pants before lifting both to speak.

 _I knew we could get hurt._

They stop and look at you expectantly, as if that would solve everything. You stare back without yielding. Frisk could be stubborn about anything and everything, so when they relented a little more you were surprised you didn't have to wait longer than a few seconds. Most of the time the two of you would butt heads for ages before someone gave in. Usually you did, but this was more serious than any other time you'd argued.

 _Didn't you feel it? The mountain? It's alive down here. I heard someone calling our names._

"That's a load of shit," you say, cutting them off. Your throat still feels sore, it's difficult to speak, but the water had helped and as much as your throat hurt your hands surpassed it. Signing to communicate wasn't an option yet. You cover your worry with anger, your quick temper getting the better of you. "It's a mountain, it can't speak."

Frisk huffs in annoyance and signs even faster. _I knew you wouldn't believe me, so I didn't tell you before! There was someone calling my name and I had to find out who it was and where it was coming from-_

"That doesn't mean you should run away from camp, alone, in the middle of the night out into the goddamned wilderness! What did you think would happen, Frisk? Look where we are! We are at the bottom of some sort of...pit or cave! We fell so far we should be -" No, don't think about that. "Ugh, I don't understand. You're right. I don't believe you. Did one of those jackasses try to mess with you again, slip you drugs or something?"

 _What? No!_

"Then what made you think this was a good idea? Shit, Karen and Greg are probably furious and by now they probably called a search party."

 _Stop yelling at me! You act like you're right all the time, but you're not!_ There are hot, angry tears running down Frisk's face but neither of you back down.

This reminds you of the fights you had at the first foster home six years ago. You always had to step up and be the adult! Frisk was acting like a child. The throbbing in your head you suspect is a concussion makes you dizzy but you push through, a rant to end all rants boiling inside of you.

"You never think of the consequences! You never think ahead!"

 _And you're too afraid to try anything!_

Your jaw clicks with the force of closing your mouth, the words stunning you for a moment. Frisk doesn't show a shred of remorse for what they said and you feel the truth in the words cutting into you like a knife. It does nothing to assuage your temper, only aggravates it.

"At least I'm not the one who got us into this mess."

 _You were the one who followed me._

You pound your fists into your thighs. "Oh, my god, you _idiot_ of course I did!"

Frisk flinches when you say the word idiot with as much force as your throat will allow, and as infuriated as you are at the entire situation you feel a sliver of satisfaction at the reaction. But as suddenly as your temper flared, regret replaced it with a healthy dose of guilt. As angry as you are, as scared as you feel, you can't do this. You can't keep this steam going when it's directed towards Frisk. They'd never purposefully done anything this reckless before. Pranks, jokes, and suggestions to skip school and go to the mall instead were harmless. This felt heavier than their carefree attitude could carry.

"When I woke up and you weren't there," you start, looking at your fists in your lap instead Frisk's face, "I was scared. I thought maybe...after what happened at the house the other night-"

Frisk reaches over and grabs your hands for a moment. When you look up their face has softened away from stubbornness to an emotion more delicate. You feel the rug pulled out from under you at the range of emotions you're flying through after waking up at the bottom of a terrifying pit in the middle of the forest and maybe if you concentrate on how to fix that you won't think about what that pig Vance tried to do to Frisk and-

 _It's over. It's not your fault._

"I thought you were running away from me because I couldn't protect you."

The words are rocks in your mouth. All of the angry bravado you'd hoped would make the fear go away only makes it worse when you allow it to show. Thinking of the night you'd woken up to the sound of Frisk thrashing in the bed on the other side of the room, ready to help them through another nightmare they couldn't explain, only to see another person standing over them...Your knuckles still remember the bruises from the punches you drilled into his back, peppering his ribs and spine until he started fighting back.

It wasn't the first time you'd defended Frisk from one of the other foster kids but this time felt darker. You were already a light sleeper, borderline insomniac, and to think what could have happened if you'd woken even a minute later? It didn't bear thinking about.

You should be the one holding Frisk right now, not the other way around. The moment of weakness makes you frustrated with yourself as you cry silent tears of shame. Their hand runs over your head and down your hair, the ponytail from before not surviving the fall. A few times their fingers snag onto leaves or brambles caught in a knot. In the quiet of this embrace your mind wanders to complain about how hard it's going to be to brush it out. The water bottle you'd forgotten putting down was back in your hands. This time you drained it, though you regretted that immediately afterwards, unsure of how much water you even had between the two of you down here.

"Ugh," you whine, pushing away from Frisk gently. You push the heels of your palms into your eyes to wipe away the drying streaks of tears and to try and stop the pounding. "I need a tissue."

Frisk laughed, a creaky sound since it was one of the only ways they used their voice.

Your hands drop from your face back to your lap with a loud slap that startles them. Out of the fog of your head hurting and your subdued panic over how the hell you'd get out of this mess, a spear of clarity shines through, something you could barely remember.

"I heard someone speak when we fell, before I blacked out."

Their face goes white and their eyes flash before they look away, though it's too fast for you to be sure. _I don't use my voice_ , _ _ _ _. They throw the movements for your name-sign like they're trying to flick water off their hands, dismissive and curt, offended you'd assumed as much.

"I didn't say you spoke."

Frisk realizes their mistake and lifts their shoulders up towards their ears in a wince.

"That was you? You said...a name, I think?"

 _Can we drop this?_

"Uh, no? I still feel too dizzy to stand up and move yet. I probably have a concussion. And moving away from the place we fell is likely the worst course of action right now. We have plenty of time for you to tell me what you remember after we fell."

 _A concussion? I think the first aid kit has a pamphlet about those._

"Frisk, please don't change the subject."

The papers in the first aid kit rustle loudly; not loud enough to block out your voice but Frisk seems to use that excuse anyway. You rub your bare arms absently and close your eyes for a second to fight off dizziness and nausea. A few snaps of Frisk's fingers bring you back to reality.

 _Hey, it lists the symptoms here, can you tell me which ones you feel?_

"Honestly, I'm having trouble reading that," you say. The little black words blur on the page in front of you where Frisk points. "I'm not letting you off the hook, you know. But, uh, can you sign the list to me and I'll let you know what I feel?"

With your combined rudimentary medical knowledge, you both agree it's a concussion. You ask Frisk if they feel any of the same symptoms but they shake their head emphatically. _I'm okay, I think. But it's getting darker here don't you think we should move?_

"No!" Frisk flinches at your voice, so you force yourself to take a couple calming breaths. "No, we should stay here for a while. Do we have a flare? We could signal for help with that, maybe. Mine's dead but does your phone have power?"

They lift their phone to show you the very dead screen, no response at all when they push on the lock and power button. It was already cracked before you both had fallen but you saw another spiderweb across the glass on the back.

Another chill runs through you, so you try to stand slowly so you can find a better place to make a sort of camp down here. Dry roots could be used to make a fire, maybe, especially if you remembered anything from girl scouts. You are really rusty on survivalist trivia but there wasn't another option in sight. Moving to stand sends you back to your knees before Frisk catches you, buffering your fall so you land more gracefully than you would without help.

Black spots dot your vision and nausea makes it hard to breathe for a second. You're dimly aware of them shaking your shoulders, gentle at first but harder when they don't get a response from you.

Standing up was a bad idea. The worst. Why did you do that? It doesn't seem important. You just need everyone to be quiet. Sleep is the only thing you need.

You fall into the waiting arms of darkness.

* * *

 **Potential trigger warnings** : descriptions of pain and physical injury trauma including concussions, broken bones, and fainting.

Please note that I am doing research for this fic but there are some things I won't be the most knowledgeable on, specifically how the foster system works in the United States. If I get something egregiously wrong please accept my blanket apology and admission I am stretching the truth.

But c'mon guys it's fanfiction give a lass a break.

Don't forget to come on over to tumblr if you want to chat, if you have any questions, anything! uwa-so-frisk


	3. Home

A warm, buttery smell gently nudges you awake, followed by a sharp and clean scent that reminds you of the mulled wine Karen drinks during the holidays. Thick blankets cover you past your ears and you snuggle further into crisp sheets, breathing in the sweet smells as you beg off getting out of bed for just a few more minutes. Everything is warm and peaceful and you'd hate to ruin the moment by waking up and going downstairs with the rest of the children living in this house.

You're always slow to wake up, a side-effect of never wanting to fall asleep in the first place. It takes another few minutes for you to realize that no, it's not Christmas morning, it's the middle of April and you're sleeping in a bed you don't recognize in a room that's far too clean to belong to you and Frisk. This bed is also far too comfortable to be your sleeping bag in a tent in the woods.

Panic freezes you for a moment as your eyes adjust to the low light. The room is small, and there's a cot on the wall opposite of the bed you're snuggled in. A single lamp illuminates the room in a far corner, casting shadows over a bookcase, tall dresser, and a few potted plants. No windows break up the wood paneling along the walls.

A search party must have found you after you passed out again. It's odd, then, to wake up in such a homey space instead of a hospital. The ambient noises from machines and nurse's stations you expect are missing, too, and instead of antiseptic and despair, that fragrant combination of cinnamon and butterscotch permeates every breath you take. One of the nurses either wore strong perfume or your room was close to a kitchen.

"Frisk?" you call out, voice hushed. No one answers, so you push the covers away.

It's hard to tell what time it is or how long you were out, but you can't feel any aches and pains that were there before you blacked out, so you assume you've been asleep for a very long time. You're anxious to move. You sit up in bed, noticing your clothes were changed from the torn shirt and jeans into flannel pajamas. Your sneakers rest innocuously by the door. The shoes are clean of any debris you remember from the fall into the field of flowers and look better than they had in months. Next to the Nikes is a pair of cloud-like slippers that feel as good as they look when you slip them on.

The floorboards to creak a bit as you step out into the hallway. More warm wood paneling meets you. The lack of windows continues into the hall and the sense of peace you had when you awakened dwindles quickly. It's hard to shake the dread that you really hadn't survived the fall and this all was about to twist into a horrible nightmare.

Everything feels just a bit too big, like you're a toy wandering through a dollhouse. It's disorienting to see a table and chair set where the tabletop comes almost to your shoulder and you would have to hop to get into one of the seats. You and Frisk are both about five foot three, not quite average height, but not short either. It wasn't noticeable in the bedroom you'd woken in but everywhere else seems to swallow you up. You start to call out your twin's name again but stop yourself. Why wasn't anyone else around? You gasp as you pinch yourself in the arm _hard_.

There's movement up ahead, a shuffling sound and low speaking once you started listening for any noise that might give you a clue to where you were and where Frisk could be.

"No, my child, you need to stir it this way instead. That's it! We add a pinch of salt next."

Your feet make almost no sound as you pad carefully down a hallway into a spacious living room while following the sound of a warm, inviting voice. Light shines from the room furthest to your right behind a fireplace and enormous armchair. You can hear the clatter of dishware and laughter within. It's quiet compared to the voice you heard giving instructions, but Frisk's laughter is there, airy and familiar. The grip of panic in your chest releases enough to breathe deeply again.

"Frisk?"

At the sound of your voice you hear your twin drop a spoon or utensil of some kind before appearing around the corner of the split between the living room and kitchen. They're dressed in an apron and long sleeved shirt. The apron is much too small for them and does nothing to protect the clothes. Flour dusts their face and arms, too, some transferring to you when they reach for a hug and then linger next to you. Personal space isn't really a thing for you with Frisk as a result of their poor eyesight and hearing. Their hair is pulled up out of their face into a tiny ponytail and their face is split with a wide grin.

 _You're awake! How do you feel?_

They reach over to check your temperature with the back of a hand and you let them. "I feel...I feel amazing, actually. Frisk what...where are we? What's going on? Did we get rescued?"

 _Yes!_ They bounce on the balls of their feet and clap their hands together a couple times and it's hard not to feel some of their enthusiasm. Relief sinks into you, tempered heavily by confusion. _Toriel saved us_.

You watch as they fingerspell a name you don't recognize followed by a strange looking sign that you interpret to be a namesign. They move the letter T from their chin to their forehead and follow it with the sign for mother, repeating it a few times, and you can't help thinking it looks an awful lot like the sign for goat-

"Hello, my child. I am glad to see you awake."

Your throat constricts after making a sound you would normally be embarrassed about. Behind Frisk an enormous - person? Animal? Woman? - appears from the kitchen with an apron that matches Frisk's all the way down to the ruffles on the pockets. The namesign immediately makes sense at the sight of this person. You're not sure how you know the tall white goat-faced creature in front of you is female but you recall Frisk's use of the sign for mother. The voice you'd heard before matched the one you just heard coming from her (muzzle?) and was layered with such genuine kindness you didn't act on your first instinct which was to turn and run back down to the bedroom and barricade the door with you and Frisk inside until the drugs wore off.

"My name is Toriel."

The name Frisk had fingerspelled. So that's how it was pronounced. You could feel Frisk's hands on your arm with a grip that was forceful but not painful. Had you tried to run down the hall? You don't recall.

Her head tilted and she smiled a bit, and you stared as you saw a line of blunt teeth interrupted by several devilish looking fangs. "Frisk told me your name is _. I am very glad to meet you, you gave us quite a scare back in the Ruins."

Eyes wide and mind on overdrive you turn to Frisk. Forcing yourself to unclench your jaw you ask, "Explain?"

Frisk glances over to Toriel, who stays standing at the barrier between the tiles of the kitchen and polished wood flooring in the living room. They motion for her to go back, signing, _The pie. I'll talk to her._

"Pie?" Your voice is choked and you can't muster more than single words, it seems.

 _Toriel found us in the Ruins after you fainted,_ Frisk starts, moving one hand rapidly until they sit you down on one of the smaller chairs you hadn't noticed before by the fireplace. Satisfied you weren't about to leap back up again, they keep going. _You tried to stand and your concussion knocked you out. I couldn't lift you but I was able to move you to a spot where you were sitting up so I could try to look for help. It was getting darker, and when I used the flare it went up and out of the hole, but nobody came. You wouldn't wake up and I don't know how long it was but then Toriel showed up! She said sometimes people fall down, and she makes sure to check the golden flower room every day, just in case_.

Instead of speaking you respond in sign as well. _What the actual fuck are you talking about, Frisk._

They grip your shoulders and search your face with concerned eyes for a second before sighing, letting go to continue to speak. _Toriel found us, carried you here, and healed you_.

The inside of your head felt hollow, like the things they were telling you were flying in one ear and out the other because this was insanity. You were insane. You really were dead, or stuck in some sort of coma where you were Alice on the wrong side of the Looking Glass -

 _Stop! _, stop it. I know what you're doing! Look at me! This is real! We are in the Underground, and we are safe but...but we aren't going home. There's no way out of here back there, no one will be able to find us_.

"I think I need to lie down."

They don't stop you when you stand up and walk woodenly back down the hallway towards the door you used to apparently teleport into crazy-town where enormous goat-creatures exist that wear aprons and bake pies. You pull the door shut behind you as calmly as you can and stand just inside the doorway to take a few deep breaths. Like rewinding a tape you do everything you did after waking, but in reverse, kicking off the slippers, sitting on the bed to stare at the room, then throwing all the covers over your head before laying motionless. It takes several hours for you to fall back asleep, hours where your brain was on a constant repeat of _what the hell - what the fuck - what the hell._

* * *

Frisk shakes your arm several times until you open your eyes and look up at them. Their face is neutral, but cautious if you're reading them correctly. Even though you are mirror images of each other in most ways, the two of you can still look as different as strangers. Where they carry mischievousness edges in all of their smiles, you take life more seriously, so it's disarming to see an expression you use almost exclusively on Frisk's face instead.

 _Hungry?_

You nod. You're afraid to look away from their face to see if the room is the same one you forced yourself to fall asleep in, but the cold logic of reality scratches at your mind the same way the unfamiliar pajama buttons rub against your chest and stomach. Moving to a sitting position, you reach to your wrist to grab a ponytail holder to see nothing there, so you drop the hold you have on your long hair behind your head.

"Hello, my child."

You freeze and look up from where your hands splay over the quilt and clench them into fists.

Toriel stands in the doorway, filling it to the point where she would have to stoop if the horns atop her head were even an inch longer. Even without them you guess she stands well over seven feet tall. Getting called a child stirs something dark and ugly inside of you but the size difference combined with the even tone of her voice quiets your automatic anger. She doesn't enter the room for the space of several breaths. She holds a slice of what reminds you of pumpkin pie balanced between her hands (paws?). Moving with measured steps into the room she settles herself onto the cot across from your bed. It groans a little as she bends almost double, knees up into her chest. The door is left open and you watch as Frisk moves out of sight towards the living room you explored earlier. At this height her eyes are even with yours across the room.

Neither of you speak, and you watch as Toriel's shoulders rise and fall in an even tempo with her breathing. You flinch away when you realize you're staring at her horizontal pupils like you'll unravel the knotted puzzle she represents somehow within them.

"It has been some time since you've eaten anything, dear. Would you like some of the pie Frisk and I baked together? It is butterscotch-cinnamon."

"Not really," you snap a little too quickly and a little too harshly.

Toriel brings the plate back towards her knees instead of reaching out toward you. She looks like your retort stung but she understands. Amazing, really, how many emotions you could read in a face covered in pearly white fur and more in common with a goat than a human. You figure you're projecting onto her though that doesn't stop you from feeling a little guilty at being so rude.

"Frisk said you carried me here and healed me." Sticking to facts and sorting out your own thoughts felt easier than trying to apologize to a goat-woman.

Her head tilts to the side a bit and her long ears sway with the motion. "I did."

"Thanks, then, I guess." You shuffle your feet below the quilt and watch how it forms hills and valleys across the bed. "Even if you probably are a figment of my imagination or some sort of coping mechanism to deal with suppressed trauma and - you know what, forget it."

"I assure you I am as real as you are, my child." Toriel is smiling now by the sound of her voice.

You look over at her again where she has stretched out her legs, appearing much more comfortable but still like an adult at a children's tea party. Her feet are bare and you notice for the first time though her face and body resemble a goat she doesn't have any hooves, but feet and hands that are humanoid. She doesn't act like she minds your staring which makes it hard to stop once that door is open.

"Is there any way I can prove it to you?"

The question surprises you and you drag your eyes away from the pads at the bottom of her feet to her face again.

"I don't know," you reply honestly. You swivel to face her, feet hanging over the edge of the bed, and cross your arms over your chest. "I can say I've never seen anything, uh, anyone like you before. I don't know how I would have dreamt you up. Or this place, either, everything is so much bigger."

Toriel watches you patiently as you puzzle out loud. The pie slice sits waiting on the bed next to her. Your stomach interrupts what you are about to say with a loud gurgle as you put two and two together, remembering the heavenly smell coming from the kitchen earlier. Logically you don't see how you could feel hunger like this if you were stuck in limbo, a dream, or something even more dire. Before you can ask her to pass you the plate, Toriel lifts the food from the bed and passes it across the room to you.

The first bite hits your tongue and spreads a warmth across your body that doesn't feel natural. It feels like waking up on Christmas morning with your parents, or whenever you meet a pet for the first time, and maybe just a little like getting a test back that you aced. More than satisfy your hunger, the pie fills a space in your chest that radiates warmth through the rest of your body.

You don't realize you had started crying until Toriel hands you a small cloth handkerchief. She moves the empty plate away from you and pulls you into her lap. You haven't been held like this since you were very young, and though you don't know much if anything about the goat-woman, the action feels natural and safe. Her fur is the softest thing you've ever felt in your life. Beneath your shoulder you can feel her chest move as she breathes. You don't understand what's happened to you since you woke up at the campsite and noticed Frisk was gone but this is the first time since you've felt safe. Protected.

"Yes, come in, my child. She's alright just a bit overwhelmed."

One of Toriel's paws leaves your arm and is replaced by a familiar hand. There's a bit of jostling as Frisk joins the two of you on the bed and presses themselves into Toriel's other side, and they grab your hand closest to them. The three of you sit without speaking as you collect yourself. You can't recall a time you'd been this emotional, especially in front of a stranger. It's undeniably odd but allowing Toriel to hold you until your chin is steady is more natural than any exchange you've had with any of the long line of foster parents in your past.

"Do you need anything more to eat, dear?"

Toriel's voice rumbles from her chest into yours like a cat's purr, only far stronger.

"Yes, please," you say. The pie was delicious, but you are nowhere near full. Even after the substantial slice you ate hunger claws inside you.

She gently sets you down on the floor on your feet so she can stand as well. Frisk slips off the side of the bed as well, and the three of you move into the kitchen to find something else to eat.

* * *

 **Potential trigger warnings** : Some references to the trauma of prior chapters.

Hi! Hey there! THANK YOU FOR READING! Please let me know what you're thinking so far in the comments section below, I treasure every one of them. See? I keep them in a shiny cookie jar on a shelf, where I can look at them and love them all the time!


	4. Unnecessary Tension

Cracks web across the front and back of Frisk's cell phone, the rough edges of the glass biting your fingertips when you brush them the wrong way. Their phone was in the backpack when the two of you fell two days ago. From what they remember they landed on it, buffering some of the impact. Yours is still mostly intact but without a way to charge it, it might as well be as damaged as Frisk's. Funny how neither of you were nursing any broken bones but the metal and glass in your hand was almost destroyed.

Holding onto the technology and messing with items from the backpack keep you sane while passing the hours in Toriel's home. The woman's hospitality is astounding, but you still don't trust her. Her intentions are too kind. In your experience there's always a catch. Foster parents, teachers, counselors, none of them had stuck around, or they turned out to be terrible people. As much as the two of you have lived through together, you're cautious for both yours and Frisk's sake.

Frisk is far more trusting. Years have passed since the accident that took your parent's lives, the same one that damaged Frisk's sight and hearing and several burn scars across their chest. But, even with so much time passed, it hurts to watch them treat Toriel like the mother you both sorely missed. They attach themselves to the woman more surely than a newborn calf following its mother. They'd never been this way with any of the foster mothers you were placed with and the behavior set alarms off in your head. It really bothers you, no matter how nice Toriel is, logic dictating it's more than simple paranoia, it's something you've seen proven time and again.

There are too many questions unanswered for you to feel at ease. Why was she down here, and how long had she lived here? Why did she look like an enormous goat with human shaped hands and feet? Was she born with some sort of birth defects that forced her to live underground? Why did both Toriel and Frisk insist there was no way out the way you came? Why was it you had to eat three times as much food to feel like you had anything in your stomach to digest? You stare down at the spiderwebs in the glass as if the answers to all of those questions and a hundred more spinning through your head were there, hidden just out of view, and if only you turned it the right way everything will make sense again. There's something bigger at work but you can't seem to find it.

You fight with them over how they're acting, expressing the depth of your frustration and concern through sign language after Toriel is in bed. They turned off the light once they realized you were trying to convince them to leave with you and return to the cave where you fell in case rescuers were waiting. You wanted to drag them out of the bed and house by force but you didn't want to alert Toriel of an attempted escape, certain Frisk would cause a ruckus. There is no way you'd leave without them.

Most of the last two days you spend in bed, recuperating at Toriel's insistence, and you're getting antsy. Concussions aren't anything to mess around with, you know that, but there's no evidence of any lingering symptoms. Today you're sitting at the dining table while Frisk and Toriel talk by the fireplace. She's telling them even more snail facts than she did the day before with Frisk returning the favor by expanding her sign language vocabulary. That was another huge question that nagged you - how did she know ASL so well, where did she learn it? Some of the motions you recognize as straight out of textbooks from decades ago. Several tattered books lined the shelves from a time before online media ruled language education. Watching them, you can't help but get a little lost in the exchange of knowledge and your own need to monitor as much as you can of Toriel's behavior.

Her laughter shakes her whole body when Frisk tells her the story of their favorite April Fool's Day prank, the one where they woke up _very_ early, walked to school and unlocked several of their friend's lockers to fill them with confetti, balloons, so many things. They'd saved up for months to buy everything they could from the corner novelty and party store. You smile, remembering how mad you were at first when you opened your locker and a ton of springy snakes leapt out at you. It felt extra special since you weren't bothered a bit by snakes but the nasty gossip two lockers down from you _really hated them_ and she avoided the area around your locker for weeks afterwards. By the end of that school year, you and Frisk were packing to go to the next foster family. Leaving that home had been the hardest. Karen and Greg you hope will be the last couple you live with until you're eighteen and can legally leave the system behind for good.

Thinking of the people above ground makes your smile fade and your attention return to the notebook in front of you. Notes and lines criss cross over each page with everything you've jotted down, everything you can remember happening since you woke up feeling like you were dying at the bottom of a cave. Several items are circled viciously, including the word you swear you heard Frisk speak though they skirt the issue masterfully each time you try to bring that up, too.

If you weren't watching Frisk again you would have assumed Toriel was jumping the shark with the next thing she said. As it was, they asked Toriel how she'd come to live here.

"I have been the caretaker of the Ruins for many years, my child, since long before you and your sister were born. There were several human children who fell before you." The fire burns a little brighter when she leans over to stoke it though you notice she doesn't reach for one of the utensils to the side. She hesitates on the next bit as Frisk uses the sign for _Where_? "They chose not to stay here with me, where it is safe. I do not wish the same fate for either of you."

The way she said the word human, her enunciation, it makes your stomach clench and eyes narrow. "What happened to them?"

Toriel moves her gaze to you but is sure to use sign simultaneously to keep Frisk in the conversation. "They moved on, deeper into the Underground."

"I thought this was the Underground?"

"Oh, no, these are only the Ruins, the very beginning of the Underground. Around a millennia ago relations between humans and my people were strained, on the brink of war on the worst days. Together we made our way deep under this mountain for our own safety. We lived here peacefully for some time before what peace we'd found crumbled and humans sealed us here."

You blink once. Twice. "You keep calling us humans like you aren't one."

Laughter bubbles forth from Toriel until she catches the look on your face. The mood is serious once more when she realizes the question is sincere. "My dear, you thought I was human? No, of course not. I am a monster."

"Excuse me, what?"

"I am a monster."

"Pull the other one," you snap. Your temper starts to burn deep in your chest.

Frisk signs your name with a jagged movement. A reprimand. But their lips are twitching, as if they're holding back laughter, too. Ouch.

"Those who fell before you showed the signs of forgetting our race. I was afraid the Barrier would eventually erase us but..." Toriel pauses to sigh, keeping eye contact with you. Frisk moves from kneeling on the floor to sit on the ottoman between you and Toriel. "You do not believe me, _, though I do not know how to prove myself to you except to exist. Your Soul is logical. You seek the truth and answers in everything you do, but you miss what's just in front of you."

"What are you implying, Toriel?"

 _Please_ , _ _ _ _ , Frisk signs, shifting to face you. _She's telling the truth. Promise._

It stings that Frisk is on her side. "Monsters don't exist. It's cruel people called you awful names for being born differently, Toriel, and I totally get wanting to claim the word for yourself. Like, take away their power? That sort of thing? But real monsters like from fairy tales they do not exist."

"It is not metaphorical, my dear. You are a human, I am a monster. It is as simple as that."

Your throat is constricting and your breathing is faster than it was a few minutes ago. Did someone stoke the fire? Sweat is beading on the back of your neck beneath your hair and dripping down your back. That's fine. This is fine. These people are either sticking to their guns with a stupid prank or have completely lost their damned minds! Toriel and Frisk watch you expectantly, as if they've revealed the secret to their best magic trick and you were supposed to ooh and ahh and move on as if everything is hunky dory and not like you are living in a house with a crazy person who claims to be another species.

"Excuse me," you choke out.

The door sticks when you yank it open, not pausing your sprint to look at an ominous tree in Toriel's front yard, or stopping to grab your sneakers from the bedroom. All you can think is a repeated litany of _this is not fine this is very much not an okay thing happening right now_.

Beneath your feet the floor is cold, slick, and you quickly lose track of where you are. Inside of the house with Toriel the muted golds and browns were soothing. Here in the corridors of the ruins the light tricks your eyes and feels sharp by comparison. You can't tell where the light source is, but it's steady and unbroken no matter which way you turn. It messes with your senses of depth perception and direction since it casts so few shadows, and you skid turning a corner, ramming into a white pillar that stands floor to ceiling. The walls, floor, and ceiling are all similar shades of purple so the color change is a shock. Blood rushes in your ears. Between your panic and the pain in the foot you rammed against the unyielding stone, you're forced to slow to a halt and get your bearings.

A pile of blood red leaves fills a far corner of the room with no discernable source. You think you might have noticed the same leaves below that mangled tree but your breathing is difficult and your head is busier trying to decide the best way out of here.

Something moves behind you, rustling another pile of leaves from a corridor you...you think you came from that direction? Oh god don't think about being lost just move _away from the crazy woman_ -

In retrospect running backwards away from the noise, though you wanted to make sure nothing was following you, was a very bad choice. You feel the ground shift beneath you and suddenly you're falling again. You can't even scream because your heart feels lodged in your throat. The trip is much quicker and far less painful this time, but you're still sore from hiking, and falling, and oh god what did you land in?

You gasp for breath after the landing knocks the wind out of you. As you do, you take your bearings. The small pit hidden under leaves is just as bright as every other place you've seen outside of Toriel's home so you're able to see every corner of the little room. There are two doors, one on the left and one to the right, and beneath you are even more of the bright red leaves. As far as you can tell, you're alone, and no one is following you down to an inexplicable hole in the floor. Arms wide on either side of you, you catch your breath and stay still on the ground. Part of you feels like crying but you can't tell if it's from hysteria, fear, or your temper. Since you can't decide you shove the instinct down until your chin stops quivering and you can breath in through your nose without a shudder.

Exhaustion from your mad dash through the Ruins and the shock of falling again (you _definitely_ had some sort of phobia now) keep you planted to the ground. In the quiet your mind supplies an image of Frisk with one of their trademark shit-eating grins. They sign dramatically _This is your life now_ and you want to smack memory Frisk into next Tuesday. You weren't safe from their shitty, overused memes even in your own head during a mental breakdown.

Time passes without you taking notice. The leaves rustle around you without any sort of breeze so the noise fades into the background. With your eyes closed to focus on your heartbeat, your breathing, something steady instead of the maelstrom in your head, you're near oblivious to everything around you.

So, by the time someone else enters the little room beneath the Ruins, you're almost in a meditative trance.

"oh...oh no...I'm sorry, I'll get out of your way…"

You shoot up and nearly knock your head into...a ghost. A very cartoonish looking ghost floating a few feet away that looks almost as surprised as you feel. His...hers? Their eyes are giant ovals compared to the overall size of their translucent body. For a breathless moment neither of you move, too stunned at the sight of each other. The ghost wiggles a bit. After years interpreting every move you could of Frisk's, you somehow recognize the action as the ghost wringing its nonexistent hands, and you almost start to laugh hysterically at the idea.

 _This is my life now._

* * *

 **Potential Trigger Warnings:** From here on out I won't mention it in the warnings down here but there is some swearing.

Much love to all, please leave a comment if you have any questions about what's going on, or just want to yell at me, tell me how your day is, anything! Tumblr is also a good place to yell at me.


	5. Ghost Fight

Years ago Frisk described what being partially blind felt like, when you were insatiably curious one night after moving into the first foster home. You were both seven and too scared to sleep in separate beds in a house you didn't know, so hours into a sleepless night the two of you were deep in a conversation rabbit hole.

Frisk didn't seem to mind the question and you suspected that was only because you were the one asking, desperately trying to understand what happened to them, how to help. They couldn't see if you were signing in the poorly lit room so you were whispering as quietly as you could. The feeling of darkness they described whenever in low light had at once terrified and fascinated you, and every time you moved after that you made sure the first thing you did was plug in a nightlight into whatever room you shared. The memory replays in your head, the description of their night-blindness, as you experience something similar with this little ghost with very few exceptions.

Bright purple and blood red of the Ruins and leaves fade away until the world is in black and white. A low sound rises in the back of your mind and after a few seconds you realize it's definitely only inside your head, not something you're hearing with your ears, though how you know this you're not sure. Cheerful and strange, the music loops over and over.

The ghost watches you. They're the only thing you can see across the black expanse of...whatever this is. It's too dark. The only word you have for it is black but it feels more absolute than that. One wrong move and you think it could swallow you whole. Beneath your bare feet you can still feel the leaves rustle around your toes above smooth tile which is very disorienting. Words float in front of you just out of your range of vision, a mirage at the edges you wish you could make out, but you're staring at the ghost, afraid to look away in case they disappeared. They float there like they're waiting for something, for you to make the first move.

Your eyes sweep up and down to regard the apparition in front of you. Hardly the strangest thing to happen to you today. Words you can't see but can hear interrupt your thoughts.

 ***Here comes Napstablook.**

Instinct tells you to move, run away, keep rushing towards the room with golden flowers, but as soon as you try you find you're only able to move so far. The black blanket filling your vision, broken only by those words on your peripheral vision and the stark white of the ghost (Napstablook?) across from you, blocks you from seeing the hand in front of your face. You can feel yourself lifting your feet, your hands, bending your knees, but you can't see any of it.

"Lucid dreaming," you mutter. It's the only logical explanation you can think of. Napstablook tilts their head across from you like they're trying to listen better. "Alright so this is a dream, how do I wake up?"

As soon as the words leave your mouth your attention snaps back up, something white moving towards you...are those tears coming from the ghost? One hits you in the middle of the chest and it _hurts_ so you dash as far as you can to avoid more hitting that spot. You look down the first chance you get to see what in the world the ghost's attack hit.

Bright, blinding color stuns you at first. After several minutes of nothing but black and white it's hard to tell what it is at first. Slowly your brain catches up to your eyes and your dream supplies you with a purple light nearly too intense to look at. The longer you gaze down, the more hues and shades you can see, and you don't know how your mind could have supplied such a brilliant color, since you're certain you've never seen this color when you were awake. It's difficult to pull your gaze back up towards Napstablook, but, if what they did hurt this ball of beautiful light, you need to be ready. Your hand brushes something to your left as you move and as you draw your fingers away you touch something else that feels slick and solid at the same time, like melting ice without the feeling of cold. More words reverberate in your head, the music of the dream world continuing on it's pleasant loop.

 ***You check Napstablook.**

"Oh, I'm REAL funny…"

The voice you can recognize now as belonging to Napstablook has a strange quality, a tone you can't pin down but makes you smile softly in understanding automatically. Leave it to you to produce a self-conscious ghost in your lucid dream to cope with the strangeness of the last few days.

Again, as you struggle to move further than a few paces in any direction so you can dodge the tears floating from Napstablook's side of the room to you, your hand touches that smooth surface. Though the words disappear as soon as you try to look directly at them, you can see the word * **ACT** and * **CHEER** before they fade away.

"Here goes nothing," you say. * **You tell Napstablook a little joke** _._ "Why can't you iron a four-leaf clover?"

Napstablook doesn't speak this time, waiting for you to deliver the punchline.

"Because you shouldn't press your luck."

"...not really feeling up to it today...sorry."

No other actions follow, no tears to dodge. You can't pretend not to be relieved you haven't had to dodge more of the ghosts tears, and anything you can try to cheer him up and stop him crying seems to be the best option. The mechanics of the dream world make sense to you now, since it's so similar to the battle modes in the vintage games you loved to play on your GameBoy before it finally gave up the ghost. You try again when it's clear it's your turn.

"Maybe you didn't like that joke?" * **ACT**... **CHEER** _._ "How do astronauts get ready for a party? They planet!"

 ***Napstablook wants to show you something** _._ "heh...heh...let me try…"

You're prepared to dodge again in case your idea of another joke didn't work. Tears do start flowing from Napstablook's eyes again yet this time instead of floating towards you the tears go up above the ghost's head and start to form something resembling a pure white top hat.

"...i call it 'dapper blook'...do you like it?"

One hand is already hovering over the * **ACT** button, ready to reply.

 ***Frisk steps into the encounter.**

Red light soaks one half of your vision for an instant, a familiar hand finding yours in the dark. Frisk's hand grips yours near painfully. You suddenly don't feel so alone and the purple light in the center of your chest glows a little brighter. If Frisk is here and you can feel their hand in yours, why didn't the dream bubble pop?

 ***Frisk tells Napstablook they like their hat.**

"oh gee…"

Without warning the black curtain of your dreamstate fades away. Purples and reds too ethereal to be real go with it, and the colors of the Ruins come back around you. Everything seems a little duller now and you blink away the spots in your vision leftover from gazing too long at the curious lights emanating from yours and Frisk's sternums.

"I usually come to the Ruins because there's nobody around...but today I met somebody nice...two somebody's...oh, i'm rambling again. I'll get out of your way…" Napstablook shifts to fade up through the ceiling, their translucent body fading to invisibility.

You blink once. Twice. Remembering to breathe, you suck in a sharp breath through your nose and open your mouth to scream because _that was a real ghost holy SHIT_ -

Frisk's face is inches from yours and you choke on the scream. "Frisk, holy shit, _what was that_!"

 _Napstablook_ , _did he damage you, what happened_? Their hands move frantically and you can barely understand them when they stand this close to you so you scoot backwards through the leaves. It had to be a dream. You remember the twinge of pain when those tear things hit your chest but it was a dream, you weren't actually hurt, there was no way. Frisk reaches a hand out to rest a few fingers a few inches below your throat and presses hard enough to leave little red dots when they pull their fingers away. _Damn he got you I think. Here. Follow me._

A dull ache resonates in your chest starting from the spot Frisk placed their fingertips. You follow Frisk through the door on the right and your stomach lurches when you experience the feeling of floating upwards through another pitch black curtain. It happens so fast you're not sure if you believe it happened. You're back in the room with white pillars and little colored switches on the ground and not quite sure how you got there. Before taking another step you grab Frisk's arm and turn them to face you.

"What is happening, what was that? How are you in my dream, did you wake me up?" You release their arm so they can answer.

 _That was an encounter, not a dream, _. You never fell asleep, or if you did then Napstablook woke you up before I got here. Toriel told me monsters use those to communicate sometimes, or if they feel threatened they bring someone into that hud to defend themselves._

"Monsters. Right. Yeah, I'm gonna go this way and climb out of that hole."

 _Oh, my god, stop it._ Frisk is suddenly serious. _The people down here. They're monsters. You need to read the book Toriel showed me. I don't know as much about that anthropology stuff you love so much but some of those dates and facts, they match up, it makes sense._

The signs for "don't know" and "anthropology" are so similar you're lost for a moment but your brain catches up after a beat. "Monsters live in fairy tales, Frisk."

 _YOU JUST FOUGHT A MONSTER WITH MAGIC TEARS HOW MUCH PROOF DO YOU NEED_?

Something snaps in the silence that follows, the cracking of Frisk's knuckles as they clench their fists. Your hands fall to your sides, halfway up to start gesturing again as you spoke. Frisk is breathing heavily from the force of what they said and they stomp around in a circle, frustrated and more serious than you've seen them in years. Chastised, you follow behind them as they stomp off to another corridor in the Ruins. The strangeness of the purple light without a source makes your eyes feel sore so you start to squint, and the pressure recedes.

Frisk had a point. There'd been a lot of proof over the last few hours, and days, that something bigger was happening down here. You don't remember the details of what happened after you'd grabbed them and fallen through that hole in the clearing, since you knew from one of your textbooks that the human brain protected itself from things like that and you shouldn't be able to remember exactly how painful that experience was. It would drive you mad. Something about implicit and explicit memory and receptors. Maybe it was a video you watched? The source didn't matter right now.

What did matter, however was trying to understand what was happening and what that meant for you, and Frisk. You tap them on the elbow gently to get their attention. They could hear most things in close proximity but when they got into a snit like this it could be hard for them to hear.

"I'm sorry," you say. "I'm sorry for not trusting you."

Frisk pauses and sighs. _It's fine. It's a lot to take in and I get that, and I've been awake longer than you have down here._

"True, I guess. But...monsters?"

 _Yes_ , they sign with finality. _Toriel and Napstablook are monsters, and everyone else down here are monsters_.

Wait. You wrinkle your brow in confusion and have to jog to catch up after missing a step. "Does that make us monsters, then, what are you saying?"

There's a pause before Frisk doubles over, laughing hysterically. You don't get time to feel hurt that they're laughing at you before you join them, the sound so welcome and change of tone so abrupt that you are pulled into it effortlessly. Wiping a tear away, you hold your stomach, still so sore after everything and the laughter only made it a little worse. Worth it.

"Oh, my god that was a stupid question wasn't it?"

Frisk bites their lip to tame their smile a little. Their shoulders are shaking still as they sign, _Yeah, it really was, you take things so literally sometimes. No, we're human that didn't change. Only ones down here I'd guess._

"But Toriel said others fell down here before us, and people go missing on Mt. Ebott all the time." Uncharitable thoughts around Karen and Greg's spring break choices bubble to the surface. "Really, what the hell were they thinking. Statistically this was going to happen."

 _Stooooppp with your statistics and ideas and just, I don't know, feel for a few minutes?_

The argument is old, and a little annoying you'll admit, but you wave Frisk's hand out of your face and do as they ask anyway. Frisk rolls their eyes and looks around the area a bit. The white pillars are far behind you but the piles of red leaves are getting bigger. You need to keep squinting to see very well and you notice that even with their damaged vision, Frisk has to do the same.

"Why is this place so bright?" you ask as Frisk guides you down another path. "And how do you know where we're going?"

 _Magic and magic?_ Before you can splutter and argue Frisk glares at you. _Feelings. Don't think for a second._

Your mouth closes and you swallow the retort ready on your tongue. Fine. You'll even go so far as plop down on this rock right here to do some damned meditation if it meant you could see what Frisk was seeing. They're a prankster, a joke fiend, but when it counted you trusted them and knew they wouldn't be acting this way if there wasn't even a shred of believability behind what they were saying. It takes a few steps to get to the grey rock, about as large as one of the footstools in Toriel's home, and you twist to sit down-

-and fall flat on your butt.

"Hey, there, pardner! It's a little rude to try sitting on someone's face, you know!"

"OH MY GOD!" you screech, turning to face the _very alive_ boulder.

"Shh, keep it down, will ya, my cousins over there are sleeping."

Frisk is over in a flash with a grin on their face that makes you think they knew _exactly_ what would happen if you tried to sit on this chattering boulder. Were they exploring the Ruins when you were out cold?

 _Sorry about my sister, she didn't mean to be so rude._ They look at you pointedly, and you're staring because there's no way in hell that the boulder could read sign language, right? It doesn't have eyes, or ears or a mouth for goodness sake!

But they glare harder and you find your voice, stammering, "S-sorry, pardon me. Won't happen again."

"Aw, you're pardoned, pumpkin. There's a few rocks up ahead that don't mind being used as stools, by the spider bake sale."

 _Thanks_ , Frisk signs.

The boulder wriggles a bit, the first movement you'd seen it make, and you realize you were staring to try to figure out where it kept its mouth, how you were able to hear it. Frisk helps you up with a hand and leads you away from the small cluster of talking stones as you shake the surprise off your face.

 _Wanna try that again_?

"I'm a little...wired. I don't know if I could concentrate enough to feel whatever the hell it is you're trying to make me feel. But…" you bite your lip, a mirror of Frisk when they do this except you tend to chew on yours far longer and far more often, "but if I just talked to a rock, and I'm pretty sure that I'm not asleep or drugged, then that _has_ to be magic, right?"

 _Right, exactly_. Frisk digs into the pocket of their corduroy pants and pulls out a few golden pieces all the size of stud earrings. Each makes a satisfying plunk when they drop it into a bag that looks to be made of spider web. _You want cider or a donut_?

"What is this, a cider mill? Uh...cider."

With an indignant finger pointing to the sign above the strange containers that reads _Spider Bake Sale. All proceeds go to real spiders_ , Frisk pays for two ciders and one donut. They pass one of the drinks to you, a little glass bottle with a paper label and a request to please bring the empty bottle back when you were finished.

"Huh. Spiders recycle." The drink is cool, slightly fizzy, and the sensation reminds you of eating food at Toriel's. You can taste it and feel it go down your throat but somewhere between mouth and stomach most of it vanishes. A warm feeling that has nothing to do with temperature spreads from your lips down to your toes in a flash and an ache you didn't realize you had disappeared from your chest like a pressure being lifted. You look for any kind of nutrition label and aren't all that surprised to not find one. "Monster food is made of magic, isn't it? I mean, I don't feel like I really drank anything but...wow, do you feel that, too?"

Chewing on half of a spider donut, Frisk nods. _Toriel could probably tell us more about how that works. You can be science nerds together._

Teasing, you can handle that, since it's more on the normal range of the spectrum of Frisk behavior, all things considered. Their bottle of cider sticks out of a back pocket and they offer the other half of the snack to you. The gesture is casual enough that you grab it without thinking, the glaze sticking to your fingers and lips as you eat it. Considering all the possibilities of magical food that instantly lifts your mood and makes you feel physically healed distracts you as Frisk leads you back through the Ruins to the courtyard with a large black tree and Toriel's home. Still barefoot, you notice the texture of leaves below your feet instead of stone and look up.

On the front steps stands Toriel wringing her hands. Buoyed by the good feelings left behind by the spider baked goods, you're not as bothered when Frisk waves enthusiastically and rushes over to be scooped up into a hug by the goat monster.

 _Found her with Napstablook_ , Frisk explains when she puts them down again. _Little ghost monster, the one you mentioned liked to wander out there?_

"Yes, I know whom you speak of, my child." Her voice is strained and she regards both of you with concerned looks in turn. "Tell me, what happened when you met them?"

Frisk looks to you to explain and, with a few sheepish glances to your bare feet at the start, you find your stride and explain everything that happened after you ran from the house. In retrospect you know your actions were very childish and rash, which were traits you typically reserved for describing your well-meaning but trouble-attracting twin. Apples and trees, you suppose. Toriel, to her credit, does not interrupt once until you describe what happened when you realized you could see only one color in the black and white world of Napstablook's approach.

"They encountered you?" she asks. The three of you had migrated to the porch benches halfway through your explanation and she leans toward you as you reach this part.

"Uh...yeah. I sat up and felt the world go all hazy around me and then all I could see was Napstablook and like, I could hear music? I think. I'm not sure, but there was some sort of music and I could see things in my peripheral vision, a _really bright_ purple light like-" your hands flap in front of your chest "-and when I touched something I was able to speak and tell them a joke. I saw something red, too, when Frisk found me."

Toriel immediately relaxes at your explanation and you wonder what she expected you to say. "Those are your Souls, dear."

"Souls. Like, what the priests at school tell us will get us into heaven if we just accept Jesus?"

"No, not like that, exactly," Toriel says. "I do not know enough of human religion to accurately answer that question for you, dear. Your Soul is...you. It is all of you, what makes up every part of your personality, your traits, everything non-physical about you starts and ends with it. When you are in an encounter it is much easier to see since the entire encounter is made of magic."

 _Like an X-Ray_? Frisk asks, eagerly participating in the discussion.

Toriel agrees that yes, that's a great way to think of it. The rest of the story goes smoothly and uninterrupted, ending when you returned to the courtyard. You're still not sure how to take all of this in but Frisk's excitement helps you to focus on _definitely not freaking out_ because Souls are real?

"Frisk brought you Muffet's bake sale so I assume you were hurt. Would you mind if I check you, dear?"

"Sure, I guess. Will you make the world black and white, too?" The idea makes you a little uncomfortable.

"Oh, no, I do not need to do that to check. Your hand, please?"

Rough pads on her fingertips rub against the few callouses on your palms. You'd half expected those to be as soft as her fur, so the texture caught you off guard and you had to consciously not pull your hand away. Sensing your nerves Toriel speaks as she gently holds your hand, avoiding touching you with the claws at the end of each finger.

"It is not necessary to touch when checking another, but it makes the entire process easier and less uncomfortable for both parties if outside of an encounter. I do not see any permanent changes to your Soul, my dear, but how are you feeling? You have had a very eventful first few days in the Underground."

"I feel great right now, honestly. And Toriel, I wanted to ask you about...well, a lot of things, really," you say, words spilling easily after talking about your run through the corridors of the Ruins. "But can we go back in the house? I have to squint a little out here, it's so bright."

"Of course, and it is getting close to suppertime. Would you join me in the kitchen while I cook for us?"

 _I want to help!_ Frisk signs, jumping up and rushing indoors without waiting.

Toriel chuckles and appears more relaxed than she had since before you ran from her home. "Your twin is quite extraordinary."

"I know," you say with a fond smile. "Don't tell them I agreed with you!"

Mimicking the motion of locking her lips and throwing away a key, Toriel stands and goes back inside. You linger for just another moment to take in the courtyard with an ominously dark tree, perpetually falling leaves, and the strange purple light from the walls.

Oh, yes. You had _so_ many questions.

* * *

 **Potential Trigger Warnings** : Canon-typical violence, mild gaslighting in the form of Reader being convinced monsters are real and they're not hallucinating.


	6. Home (Music Box)

"This book mentions how monsters existed all over the surface of the Earth back then but most of them were concentrated here in the Rockies. Why is that?"

"Relations between humans and monsters were deteriorating quickly after too many misunderstandings driving a wedge between the foundations built over the course of millennia. At the time, we had the means to live in less forgiving climates and thrive in ways humans could not. Our voluntary separation extended peace for several hundred more years past what I suspect they would have lasted." Toriel pauses to pass a bowl of dull blue cooked mushrooms to you, and you dished some onto your plate before passing them to Frisk. "We traded with nomadic and native humans who populated the region and entertained visiting monsters and humans from far reaches of the globe. Our king, Asgore, he sought to mend relations with the humans, but each time an ambassador contingent returned from their attempts it was clear the humans were not as interested in peaceful interactions as monsters were."

Suppertime is usually dominated by discussions of whatever you'd studied that day and tonight was no exception. There's a heady sense of peace and normalcy despite everything that's happened, though it still feels funny after several weeks living Underground to notice the passing of time only through the hands of a clock on the mantle.

You stick close to Toriel's home whenever venturing out into the Ruins, but tomorrow she had promised to take both of you with her when she checked the golden flower cavern for any other fallen humans. She went every day but since your...outburst, you had decided not to press your luck. Tomorrow you'd be rewarded for your patience.

You cut the various vegetation on your plate into bite size pieces as you listen. Meat was never part of the meal, but you really didn't miss it. From the way Frisk voraciously ate whatever Toriel put in front of them, they didn't either. Toriel had already explained living Underground limited the monsters living here to fewer food groups. After experiencing the shock of meeting sentient stone, you could see the complications a meat-filled diet would pose. Everything tasted amazing and not least because of the way it was infused with fucking magic .

"That makes sense," you say between bites. "Asgore, was he a good king?"

Toriel tilts her head with an odd look in her eyes. "He is still king of all monsters."

How old is he ? Frisk signs with wide eyes. He's got to be a billion years old!

"Closer to three thousand, my child," Toriel says with an indulgent smile. She reaches over to check Frisk's chin gently in an imitation of a pinch. Her claws would make a real pinch dangerous.

"Three thousand? Holy sh...iitake mushrooms." To hide your disbelief and almost slip-up from Toriel, you spear another bite and lift it to your lips. Before eating you pause to look at it more closely, ready to ask another question. "How do these work?"

Toriel methodically cuts into her own food and looks at you across the table with a knowing smirk but doesn't reprimand you. You've learned that look. She'd divulged to you two that her life's ambition was to become a teacher, and this was a look you'd seen on all of your favorite teachers topside. Though Frisk hadn't asked the question, she made sure to direct her comment to them as well.

"How does it make you feel?"

Really good, of course, and it tastes awesome , Frisk answered after wiping their mouth with a napkin. The mushrooms feel like they're just for health?

"Yes! Correct, my child. And you, dear? The roots?"

Your mouth twitches and you squint your eyes a bit. The same technique you'd used to see more clearly outside was the easiest way to concentrate on what Frisk could do without visible effort: check your stats. Eyes lidded, almost shut, you can't see the light in the middle of your chest but you can feel more of it. Like breathing or your heartbeat, it's there but not in the forefront of your mind unless you intentionally focus on it.

"Health points, of course. But there's something else to do with my uh, my vision?"

Toriel beams at the both of you. "Wonderful work! Now, tell me what you did with Napstablook today, Frisk?"

Frisk animatedly tells the dinner table how they met the ghost by chance not far from the courtyard in front of the house and spent time laying on the ground and feeling like garbage together. You almost snorted water out your nose when they signed that combined with the goofy, happy grin on their face.

The routine you'd fallen into with Toriel and Frisk was comfortable enough throughout the waking hours you only felt the heaviness of reality when you went to bed at the end of the day. Then, lying in bed facing the unfamiliar ceiling and breathing in air that tasted different, even felt different moving through your lungs, your mind raced a mile a minute. Monsters. They were real. All of it. And they could use magic ! Logic and childlike excitement fight for control of your brain every night and all you can do is lie there and let the rush of thoughts and ideas drown you.

Of course, this means sleep does not come easily, but you were no stranger to insomnia before falling down into this confusing other world far beneath the mountains. Better eyesight and hearing meant you were commonly the guard dog in every new home and everywhere you went with Frisk. As you got older the anxiety charged insomnia hours filled with reading or scrolling through whatever interested you on the internet, eventually falling asleep with your phone face down on your chest or the mattress beside you after more late night reading. Down here you didn't have the internet. Sure, Toriel had procured ancient looking phones from somewhere that worked down here, allowing you and Frisk a modicum of expanded independence, but the most outlandish thing you could do with them was play Snake. And that got old.

You'd asked where she'd gotten the phones down here since you'd listened to more than one lecture about how there was no way out through the cavern, that she'd tried a hundred different ways, and Toriel had paused before answering.

"Sometimes I find things in the Ruins that don't belong here, my dear. Every so often travelers far above will lose things in the start of this place, where you and Frisk fell, and over the years I have collected those things to learn more about what has changed in the world above."

"How long have you been down here, Toriel?" you ask as the three of you tend to a garden in the courtyard of her home.

Toriel had smiled at you, covered in soft dirt up to her elbows. "A very long time. I have missed hundreds of thousands of sunrises by now."

You'd needed an afternoon to process what she'd said, and part of you still was having trouble believing that this woman could be several hundreds of years old. Hell, even with the proof of the encounter with a real live ghost, the way the leaves went through an entire life cycle in the span of a few minutes on the tree in the courtyard, your logic wanted to disprove everything you'd seen. If anyone told you there was a magical world beneath Mt. Ebott and that attributed to the dozens of disappearances on this mountain, you would have accused them of huffing paint under the bleachers or eating funny mushrooms. But now you were living that reality whether you believed it or not. Believing, with a healthy amount of questions, was far simpler.

There isn't a clock in your room and the brick of a phone is too far out of reach to check without sitting up, so you don't have a way to tell how long you'd been trying to sleep. Frisk is out, even snuffling a snore here and there underneath the quilt they pulled over their head.

Resigned to the itching wakefulness plaguing you, you slowly slide out from under the covers and wander into the living room. The large chair by the fire looks warm and inviting. Toriel is so much larger than an average human that your feet wouldn't come close to the floor sitting in her recliner. You want to curl up into it and pull the shawl hanging over one arm around you like a cocoon, soaking in the heat from the constantly crackling fireplace. As tempting the idea is, you have a feeling even in that spot you wouldn't be able to sleep. You'd spotted a book in the pile Toriel set aside for what she called yours and Frisk's 'monster education'.

Old, text nearly worn away on the spine, the human social science book stands out among the well-kept books written in English and a text Toriel called the First Tongue. The book looks like it had been thrown away and you can't make out the publishing date, or most of the information in the book for that matter, but you're pretty confident it's several decades old. It's not what you need to relax since after several minutes you're rubbing your temples. Words bleed together and you don't understand why Toriel kept this book at all if every other page was illegible from water damage, or they were completely missing.

Next in the pile is a book with symbols and glyphs covering every page. You can't read a word of it but the inscriptions look so beautiful and the illustrations so vibrant that you think you can use it to finally lull yourself to sleep.

Light from the fire fills the room with a soft glow that isn't quite bright enough to read this by. An oil lamp sits next to a potted plant on the dining table. When you reach over to turn the light up enough to look at the words on the page, you look up into the hallway to the bedrooms and catch Toriel slowly opening her door and making her way towards you. Her snout-like mouth opens wide with a yawn. A small sound of surprise interrupts it as she catches sight of you at the common room's table.

"Hello, my dear," she says, coming to stand behind one of the other chairs. Sitting as you are, she towers over you, over seven feet of monster regarding you with a kinder look than you'd witnessed on most humans. "Are you having trouble sleeping, as well?"

"I don't sleep much," you say with a shrug. "Insomnia."

Toriel's brows meet with a flash of concern. "Are you not comfortable here? I want you to be able to rest fully, my dear. From what I remember sleep is especially necessary for growing humans."

"No, it's not that Toriel, I promise," you say, eager to reassure the woman who you'd started to trust more and more each day. The idea your susceptibility to sleeplessness disappointed Toriel made your stomach twist. "And don't worry about that I think I'm fully grown by now. Nah, I haven't slept well in a very long time. I'm usually up late studying or reading, stuff like that."

Toriel takes a seat in the chair across from you, the concern softened from her gaze a bit. "Frisk told me some of what growing up has been like for the two of you. And what happened before the two of you fell to the Underground."

The room suddenly feels much smaller and you stutter before taking your next breath.

"What almost happened was not Frisk's fault, nor was it yours." Toriel reaches across the table to take your hand in hers, prying it away from the book in your hands. "You are not responsible for the actions of others. The way you both care for each other is enough to melt an old woman's heart."

You can't find any words to say, so you squeeze the hand holding yours a little tighter and feel the haze of frustration fade away to nothingness. It's too much to look her in the eye for very long and you draw your hand back slowly to grip the book again. Toriel stands and moves away as you compose yourself.

How had she known exactly what to say? Was that a monster thing, a magic thing, or just a Toriel thing? You're sure it's the latter.

Toriel shuffles out of view for several minutes, returning once the threat of tears leaves your throat with steaming mug in each hand. One is far larger than the other and she offers you the smaller of the two. You can smell it before she sets it in front of you, the rich hot chocolate filling your nose and lungs, warming you from head to toe before even taking a sip. Seated at her dining table, Toriel looked the exact right size, where your feet barely scraped the floor while seated. For several peaceful moments neither of you spoke, content to enjoy your drinks.

Is saying thank you enough to say after what she'd done to help her and after all the doubt you'd cast on her? The last few weeks have been some of the best in your life, minus the whole falling into a cavern and likely breaking several bones thing. It would have to be enough for now since your throat doesn't seem to want you to talk much just now.

"Thank you, Toriel," you say. Frisk started calling her mom several days ago but the affectation fell flat in your mouth whenever you considered saying it, too. That would be a little too much, even now.

Her nose wrinkles a bit into her snout when she smiles. Oh, that's adorable. "Of course. Are you feeling better?"

"Loads," you reply. The warmth you'd felt before just in proximity with the magical monster hot chocolate was spreading all over your body.

Like with all monster food your stomach didn't feel as though you'd polished off a mug of cocoa. The science behind it eluded you and Toriel admitted she did not understand the nature of its effects on humans completely herself except that you would need to eat three times as much to get the other nutritions you needed to thrive. But with how much she liked to cook, and how delicious the food always was, in the end it was a win-win for everyone involved.

"I think I'll grab a book to read and try to fall asleep," you say.

"Would you like me to try reading to you? I understand it helps children to fall asleep."

Your nose wrinkles a bit at being called a child again You were almost eighteen, only a month or so away from your birthday, in fact! Very nearly an adult! Toriel notices you distaste and laughs instead of being insulted.

"I understand, my dear. Here, let me help you pick something interesting to you."

"Not too interesting," you say, sliding off of your chair and walking your mug to the kitchen sink. "It's supposed to help me sleep not keep me up longer."

"That is fair," Toriel says with a smile that makes her eyes glitter with mirth. "How about this one, then? It is a primary book for young monsters learning some of the basic information you need to read, write, and someday speak the First Tongue."

The weight of her statement catches you off guard for a moment. Glossy and well-kept but very old, the book weighs heavily in your hands like the implications of your situation. "We really are staying down here forever, aren't we?"

Toriel, about to sit down in her armchair, pauses then leans down to kneel at your level. Gravitas pours through her voice with conviction and grace. "The Underground keeps us, and it does not give up its claims lightly."

Eye to eye with Toriel you try to breathe through the panic that wants to pull you like an undertow out into the sea of despair. You wouldn't get accepted to your dream universities and go on to become a world-hopping anthropologist who was occasionally tapped as an expert for specials on the History Channel or National Geographic. Frisk wouldn't get to be able to turn their hobby for robotics and mechanics into a career of their own. Instead of the entire world you were left with this strange world of magic and monsters restricted to what was only the size of your school's campus. There are so many things you could think of you would not get to do.

But you have Frisk. They are here with you. And that's all that really matters, in the end.

"Are you alright, my dear? Breathe with me, please."

Oxygen rushes into your lungs as you match Toriel breath for breath. To your relief the panic passes quickly and without tears. The book is clutched close to your chest and you bury your face into it for a moment to collect yourself, hair falling around your face to hide.

"I'm okay," you say in a small voice.

It's not, really, but you're keeping your head much better than you expect. It's not logical but sometimes it feels good to lash out at the world when it's unfair like this. But, right now, it doesn't happen. The familiar bubble of the temper you often can't control, it doesn't start. You want to rage against the world for keeping you down here when there was so much you wanted to do! And Toriel, everyone stuck here, it wasn't fair . The idea of giving up makes you feel a little sick but you can't focus enough right now to even begin to think of a plan. Everything feels a little fuzzy from exhaustion catching up to you.

Your fingers ease a bit on the book and you look up to face Toriel again. "I think...I think I'd like to just go to bed, actually. I'll look at this tomorrow."

Toriel smoothes her paw over your forehead to push your hair out of your face, unsticking pieces here and there caught in your eyebrows and lashes. It tickles and sends a shiver up your spine, but the gesture is comforting and welcome. You lean into her as she walks you down the hall into the room you share with Frisk. Another true bed replaced the cot not long after you woke up. They're as you left them, curled under the quilt and softly snoring here and there. When Toriel pulls the blankets up to your chin, placing the book on the dresser nearby, they stir a little and their hands twitch in half-formed words. She fluidly rearranges their sheets over them without waking them up, and before she's shut the door behind her, the magical hot chocolate begins to lull you to sleep.

The last thought before succumbing to the sandman is a loop of what Toriel said that threw you into a tailspin - the Underground does not give up its claims lightly .

Whether she meant to say it that way or not, you clutched it like a lifeline. There is a chance, a chance to get everyone out, and you are determined to find it.

* * *

 _Hey there! Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate every kudo, hit, subscription, bookmark and especially every single comment. Got questions? Concerns? Constructive comments? Leave 'em below. They do so much to keep this story going._


	7. Enemy Approaching

Crushed velvet doesn't seem the most practical thing to wear around the Ruins but after Toriel presents the two of you with a set of clothes like hers, you concede and are almost instantly sold on how comfortable they feel. As much as the three of you traversed the Ruins each day, learning more about monsters, magic, and collecting food, it all had taken a toll on the few clothes you had. With bright white leggings underneath what feels more like a tunic than the robes you had to wear for choir during Sunday mass, the outfit is cozy in the slight chill of the Ruins and you're able to move more freely than the jeans and shirts you were cycling through. Frisk proves this immediately by skipping and leaping around the front room, laughing as they signed their thanks.

"I am very happy you like them, my child," Toriel says, scooping Frisk up into her arms as they run past again. She nuzzles her snout under their chin, holding them close.

 _Put me down!_ Frisk signs as they giggle, squirming this way and that until they were on their feet again. _Can we go to the golden flowers now_?

The walk from the house to the start of the Ruins is familiar by now. For the last week you'd gone by yourself several times through the strange purple caverns back to the place you and Frisk fell down. Nothing changed except the growth of small mushrooms and herbs at the far corners of the cave where sunlight never fully reached. Toriel had been very nervous the first time you and Frisk went together without her and even moreso when it was one of you at a time, but she had explained at dinner she wanted to test your independence and both of you had passed with flying colors.

Toriel said she had to check another part of the Ruins she'd not brought you to yet today, the near-empty city you can see from a balcony running behind her home. Your curiosity needled at you, encouraging you to follow after her instead of moving on to do your chores, but you trusted Toriel. It had grown slowly, but the trust you held in the towering goat monster was stronger for it.

"Call me if you need me and I will be at your side," she says when you part ways in the courtyard. "And say hello to any monsters you see along the way for me!"

Frisk salutes to her and grins, lopsided and affectionate. _Will do, goat-mom_.

Together, you and Frisk move through puzzles you're familiar with by now, chatting comfortably. Empty packs hit your backs, ready to be filled with whatever foodstuffs you can find on your trip. The anticipation each time you do this of the chance someone else had fallen puts a spring in your steps. This time the novelty of wearing matching outfits dominated your conversation. Doing it by choice was unusual because, really, as twins it got a bit sickening how many foster parents tried the same stunts, and you both avoided it subconsciously at this point. It helped that Frisk's fashion sense was always a little more "out there" than yours.

The light in the Ruins doesn't hurt your eyes now so you don't have to squint as you make your way around. Frisk spots Napstablook floating near the rock family but they disappear before the two of you get close enough to call out to them, so instead you pause to greet the faceless boulders instead.

"Hey, pardners! Good to see you today!"

Distinguishing which rock speaks when is almost impossible to spot for you. Frisk always seems to get it right the first time and carries on in sign language. You watch greedily and try to figure out how something without eyes can understand a language told almost exclusively through visuals.

"Watch out there up ahead, friends, the froggits are practicing their encounters today by the sounds of it. Take care!"

Since your first time meeting Napstablook, you haven't experienced another of the monster encounters. The purple glow from your chest is in almost all of your dreams and sometimes the glowing red of Frisk is there, too. It's a puzzle you still don't understand. Toriel explained it's a visual representation of your Soul but without the ability to see it at will, you're working on blind faith, and that had never been one of your strong suits. Frisk can process new information and accept it without question while you needed a little more time, a few more answers, before making your choice. And then, sometimes even with miles of proof, you can't sway Frisk. The two of your are as opposite as can be on that front.

As it is, you want to see your Soul again and see if every encounter is the same. For science, of course.

"Hey, Frisk?" you ask as the two of you move on.

Their shoulder bumps into yours as you walk. _What's up_?

"You think maybe we can go check out those froggits?"

Frisk looks at you with a grin that grows into a full smile.

 _Absolutely._

In retrospect it's ridiculously easy to run into the froggits and the two of you stumble into an encounter with them as soon as you stopped trying.

 ***Froggit hops close. Life is difficult for this enemy.**

"Enemy?" you whisper to Frisk.

By now you can't see each other, but you can feel them shrug since you were holding onto their hand. The red of their Soul is almost as blinding as the purple of your own. It's hard to pull your gaze away from them, though when the Froggit attacks, your decision is made for you. Frisk keeps hold of your hand and uses it to guide you side to side to avoid the little shapes flying from Froggit's side of the encounter. You're careful to keep your other hand almost glued to your side to avoid accidentally hitting any of the hazy words on the bottom of your vision. On your left Frisk jerks to the side and you experience the same sensation you had with the words you could feel more than see. * **ACT** ... **COMPLIMENT**.

 _You have a lovely complexion, Froggit_.

There's not a voice when Frisk compliments the monster so much as a mimicry of the knowledge you'd read their signs correctly, a feeling so common and simple it was almost impossible to describe. As if you were interpreting feelings instead of signs or words. It's the same sensation that happened during the encounter with Napstablook.

 ***Froggit didn't understand what you said, but was flattered anyway** _._

"This is so cool," you mutter, shaking with excitement even as you dodge another attack. "I shouldn't be giddy over getting attacked by a monster _but this is so cool_!"

Another turn passes and you feel Frisk reach around you as their red Soul drifts closer. A large image appears in front of you with the word ***SPARE** dominating your vision with beautiful gold lettering. In another breath, the black and white stage falls away, and the glow of your Souls goes with it. The Froggit cocks its head at you before hopping off to join the others.

 _I don't think any of them are hostile here anymore_ , Frisk signs.

"No, I don't think so either."

They reach into a pocket of the tunic to open a spider cider for each of you. After deciding to go along with your idea, Frisk said you had to stop to get something in case either of you were hurt. It's cool and refreshing even if neither of you were hit that much by the attacks.

"Thanks," you say, gesturing to the cider. The two of you lean against a wall for a moment's rest. Just another few rooms and you'd be as close as you could get to the Surface. A glance at your blocky phone's screen shows it's close to lunchtime and you push off the wall to keep moving. "We'd better get going. Toriel didn't mention how long her errands would take her and she expects us back in a couple hours."

 _Did you get what you wanted_? Frisk asks.

You sign _maybe_ before continuing, brushing shoulders with them again as you crossed a narrow ledge, backs against the wall as you shuffled across. "I don't really know what I was looking for, honestly, but I had to see our Souls again. Can you see them?"

 _Yeah, they're super bright red and purple but more than that at the same time_?

"Right? Exactly! It's more than light or color it's…"

 _Everything_? Frisk takes your hand on the last step to steady you. _Almost too much_?

"Yes, oh my god, yes. I'm so glad you can see it."

 _Me, too_.

The archway into the enormous cavern yawns before you. Jesus, it's so high, the ceiling so far above your heads. Looking up you can feel the knot of your ponytail hit your backpack...

Frisk waves a hand in front of your face. _Earth to __ , _you with me_?

"Yeah, yeah," you say, distracted, adjusting the straps over your shoulders, still looking up. It's near noon so the bright disc of the opening above is dim, the sun still on the other side of the mountain. "It's so damn high up, I don't know how we survived that."

Spinning with a dramatic twirl of their tunic, Frisk faces you and repeatedly signs _magic_! You lightly shove them but can't stop a grin. Damn them.

"Wacko. Let's look over there, we haven't harvested anything on that side since last week."

 _Okay, race you there_!

"Seriously, Frisk?" They're already pumping their legs as fast as they can go across the floor of the cavern before you can ask, "Wait, no!"

Running through flowers is not as easy as actors onscreen make it look and you nearly trip to fall flat on your face twice. Of course Frisk beats you to the rock outcropping you'd pointed out, all shit-eating grins and trying not to breathe too hard to pretend it was easier to beat you than it was. You wouldn't lay down for their teasing!

"Do you think Toriel is as old as Asgore, Frisk? She knows so much about what happened before the Barrier."

 _Definitely. And you know what, the way she talks about him, I'm pretty sure she used to be a lot closer to him. I asked her that the other night and, well, she looked very sad and said I was right but to never forget a king does terrible things to help his people. She said that's why she isn't still with him._

You blink and think on that while keeping your hands busy. "I wonder what he did that was so terrible. Do you think he's in that city near the house, Home? She's told us never to go there without her and hasn't brought us there yet."

Frisk looks more serious than normal and yanks a little harder on a root than what was necessary. _No. I think he's a lot further away than that._

"How do you know that?" you ask, suspicious.

 _Know what?_

"About Asgore. About a lot of things down here, actually. You're just...you're taking all of this so easily."

Frisk digs at the ground for another second or so before answering, fingers and nails full of soft dirt. _I'm able to be myself here, __. _Not once has anyone questioned me about...how I look or how I dress, why I can't see very well, why I don't use my voice, nothing. Unless I want to tell them. It's more than I can say for any human._

"I didn't realize...I'm sorry. I was assuming. Frisk, I-"

 _Hey._ Frisk puts their hands on yours and squeezes for a second before continuing. _Don't worry about it._

"But I should have paid better attention! I've been so focused on how I'm feeling about all of this that I've been ignoring you."

 _Ignoring me? Oh, my god, no it just...hasn't come up yet. Stop blaming yourself. Seriously. You do that too much._

Moment broken, Frisk smiles and turns back to the patch of dirt in front of you. The two of you make quick work of gathering a few roots Toriel advised weren't sentient or poisonous, the same for a veritable buffet of mushrooms. Half of them were bioluminescent, odd shapes almost like stars, or so spindly you were afraid they'd disintegrate on the walk back.

Sunlight glitters far above as you head back to the archway with full knapsacks. Both of you stand and stare at it in silence for a minute, silently wishing there was a way up and out. Frisk turned after a minute or two, and stares at the shadow of the Ruins looming above, their jaw set and mouth a stubborn line.

The beauty of the room is clear even with the pain you associate it with. There's a bloom of guilt in your chest when you realize every day you spend Underground makes you miss the surface a little less. Before you can entertain that thought for too long, Frisk loops their arm in yours so you can guide them back out of the cavern and head back home.

Neither of you notice one of the golden flowers watching you as intently as you watch the sun.

* * *

 _Hey, guys! I really appreciate every interaction to this fic. Please let me know if you're confused on anything, would like to see something with the characters, anything. Your interactions help shape what this story could become._


End file.
